yard sale underwear, y'all :)

   I am not ashamed of my poor upbringing…I guess I never really was. I don’t think I knew how viciously poor we were.  Often, buying 4 children all new clothes to start the new school  year was just too much for my mom to afford and so…we made do. When I got old enough to drive, I’d hit yard sales or clearance racks…sometimes, women at our church would give Bobbie and me bags of clothes. We’d go thru them, sorting and picking what would work. I’d grab stuff and head to the treadle sewing machine…altering things, adding darts or patches to cover up they were once someone else’s stuff.

  One thing I remember thinking though, when I was about 12…when I grow up…I’m gonna have enough money to NOT wear….

                                  

                                                        yard sale underwear.

There. I said it. It’s out there. And it’s ok. I said it and I survived.  Never want to do it again, but by cracky, once you’ve worn yard sale underwear it’s all uphill.

  Mom would go to yard sales sometimes while we were at school and we’d get off the bus to find a few things laying on our bed. A shirt. A pair of jeans. A dress. A bra. And…faded cotton underwear, marked with masking tape “ten cents”. We’d wash all the clothes in the wringer washer and hang them out to dry on the line. Once, mom brought me home a pair that had leopards on them…and very carefully in permanent marker on the tag the name “Brenda” was written. I cut the tag out after they were washed. You know that saying about having on clean underwear if you had a car accident? Well…I didn’t want somebody to think I was “Brenda”.

    I never told anyone at school and would have DIED if they found out. Especially “Brenda”. Once, I bought a cute yellow dress at a yard sale…I was friends with the girl I bought it from…and she was nice enough to never tell anybody. Thanks, Gabby. I owe you.

    My first prom dress I bought for twelve dollars and fifty cents. My friend Jennifer had worn it to a prom a year before. It was turquoise with a white lace overlay…it was long and had poofy cap sleeves. She wanted to charge me ten dollars, I said “oh, more than that! Fifteen?” she wouldn’t take my offer, so we split the difference. Twelve dollars, fifty cents.  I took it home…cut the poofy sleeves off…mom cut it off tea length, leaving the white overlay just a little longer…added my mom’s long white evening gloves from HER prom and along with the beaded purse she had also  carried, I was set. My good friend Russ and I set out for prom and danced the night away. He knew how poor I was and didn’t care. He was my friend and my friends knew all my yard sale secrets and kept them to themselves, as they had secrets of their own. Dads or moms who left. Divorces. Abuse.  Alcoholism. Oh, didn’t we all have secrets? Didn’t we each alter things to try to make them different and look better?  

   I became known for my funky style of dress…big men’s jackets (fished out of a goodwill bin) white lace boots that looked like something Madonna or Cyndi Lauper would wear (yard sale) cheap canvas tennis shoes from Walmart (2 dollars a pair) that I would take the shoelaces out and write funny things on in ink. Lots of pins and medals stuck all over huge men’s denim jackets I bought at a second hand store. Long men’s shirts that came to my knees, with belts around my waist…I’d wear socks that matched my shirts and tuck my pants into them. I’d layer big sweat shirts over tank tops I found in clearance bins.

   I don’t go to yard sales much anymore…but I have kept my love for second hand stores. Half of my wardrobe is secondhand…Dresses, coats, jeans,shirts…I have passed that love down to my daughter and son…neither of them mind yard sale or second hand clothing. One thing I didn’t pass down? Yard sale underwear. I buy mine new and throw them away the minute they look threadbare or faded. I throw them away and I think of my mother, trying so hard to keep us in clothes and keep the rent paid and food on the table on her nurses’ salary, buying underwear for me and my siblings at yard sales in the small town in which we lived.